Where to start Snoqualmie River innertube float?
August 20, 2011 5:16 PM   Subscribe

Friend is visiting from out of town and we were thinking of tubing on the Snoqualmie River (Washington). Searching the internets I know the take out point is in Fall City (and I've driven by it) but where do we put in?

I found some vague instructions about parking up by the falls and putting in just below, but I know they've closed the hike down there due to construction. So, do any mefites know where exactly we can park a car and launch our tubes on the Snoqualmie River? Bonus points if you know roughly how long the float is down to Fall City or how the river has been running lately.
posted by HMSSM to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (3 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Whatever you do, don't get in the river in Snoqualmie or North Bend in a tube thinking you're going to float to Fall City, because you'll go over Snoqualmie Falls.
posted by thewalrus at 7:23 PM on August 20, 2011


I think you have it backwards: Fall City for the put-in point. Sno Falls isn't very far up-river, so it wouldn't be much of a trip.

You could take out in Carnation at, say McDonald Park.
posted by trinity8-director at 5:28 PM on August 21, 2011


Response by poster: Well, in case anyone comes by looking for information on this, here is what we did:

We dropped off a car at Fall City, parking area right along 202 just before the bridge. We drove the other car up to the Plum River Access (a bit past the boat launch) on Fish Hatchery Road. The way things sound, you should have a parking pass. We had a Discovery Pass which covered us and so I didn't look around for more information on this.

We launched our tubes and the water was... bracing. But we got used to it fast. Weather was 80 and sunny though so it was perfect. We launched at 1pm and made it back to the Fall City bridge at about 4pm with just mostly idle floating.

It also seems the county has a PFD (life vest) requirement (as of June 2011) for most of its major rivers. As far as we could tell, no one was checking for them and the river was pretty mild. It is a northwest mountain river though and moves a lot swifter than slow southern crawls (and is a LOT colder) and I certainly wouldn't recommend drinking alcohol. Its a nice meander on tubes but the water actually moves fast enough in some places that you want your wits about you in case you do fall overboard.

We did see a couple of people with jetski type things which was annoying and loud, I kind of hope they hit rocks. We saw a bunch of people fishing and in some cases, watching over the edge of the tube rewarded us with sights of some fairly large fish (trout?).

We got out of the water at the bridge (the access back to the parking is on the left). Drove back to the start to pick up the car. Absolutely amazing day, but not one I would want to do unless the weather is really nice (like it was today).
posted by HMSSM at 9:28 PM on August 21, 2011


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